House Rules
Characters and Character Creation *Ability scores: point buy 30, starting at 8, as on page 169 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. *All characters begin with 1,000 gold and an adventurer's kit containing a backpack, 5 torches, flint & steel, 50' hempen rope, a waterskin, and clothing of your choice (excluding courtier's outfit, noble's outfit, and royal outfit). (21 lb., not counting gold and clothing.) *All characters begin at 0 experience. *Hit dice are maximized at first level (this is not a house rule). At each level after first, you gain half your hit die, plus 1 (plus your Constitution modifier), as follows: d12 = 7; d10 = 6; d8 = 5; d6 = 4; d4 = 3 *A character may have up to 2 flaws and up to 1 trait. *Characters take no experience penalties for multiclassing. Instead, they gain one of three bonus feats related to their racial favored class, even if they do not meet the feat's prerequisites. **Any character may choose between the Versatile Alignment feat with respect to their favored class (or any one class, if their favored class is "any"), Monastic Training (from the Eberron Campaign Setting) with respect to their favored class (or any class, if their favored class is monk), or Knight Training (also from ECS) with respect to their favored class (or any class, if their favored class is paladin). *Monster class progressions (e.g., from Savage Species) may be used. A character is not required to finish their monster class progression before entering another class; however, a character may not have more class levels than monster levels unless their monster class progression is complete. Once you have completed your progression in a monster class, the “empty levels” that do not add hit dice may be reduced like level adjustment, as below. *Bloodlines (from Unearthed Arcana) may be used. A bloodline level counts as a level adjustment and nothing more; it does not count as a class level for any purpose. However, once you have taken all the bloodline levels you are required to take (1 for Minor, 2 for Intermediate, 3 for Major), they may be reduced like level adjustment, as below. *Level adjustments may be reduced as follows: A character’s level adjustment may be reduced at any time, provided the character has enough experience. You may spend as much experience as you desire, but your total experience cannot be reduced below the minimum of your current class level. The experience cost to reduce your level adjustment by 1 is equal to 5,000 x your current level adjustment. **For example, a character with a +3 level adjust may reduce it to +2 by spending 15,000 XP, to +1 by spending another 10,000, and to +0 by spending another 5,000. *For the purpose of the epic-level prerequisite for epic feats, prestige classes, and other options, a character is considered epic at 10th level instead of 20th level. After 10th level, regular feat slots may be used to acquire epic feats. All other prerequisites still apply. **There are no epic spells. If you take the Epic Spellcasting feat, you may use your epic spell slots only to prepare or use metamagic'd versions of non-epic spells. *You may ignore regional requirements for feats, prestige classes, and other options, except that you may not select two options that have conflicting regional requirements. *A wizard specializing in Divination must choose two banned schools, as with every other school specialization, instead of one. *You may level up immediately when you gain enough experience to do so, no matter where you are. You immediately gain your full new hit points (i.e., your current hit points go up, but your damage remains the same), but you don't immediately gain anything that you would need a rest for (such as new spell slots, new spells prepared, additional power points, etc). You may elect to delay leveling up as long as you wish, but for the purpose of XP awards you are treated as being whatever level you've earned (so if, e.g., an artificer delays leveling up from 2 to 3 to use up their craft reserve, they're still treated as an ECL3 character for the purpose of future XP awards), you must still apply your levels in the correct order, and you must apply each level in its entirety at the same time. Situational *An attack roll of 1 is a threat for a critical miss, which works just like the inverse of a threat for a critical hit: you roll to confirm the fumble, and if your confirmation roll would miss your target, you have critically fumbled. If you make a critical fumble, various bad things happen (drawn from Paizo's critical fumble deck). If a PC or a major (e.g., named) NPC makes a critical hit, they draw from Paizo's critical hit deck. All others simply multiply the damage as usual. (This rule is negotiable on a party-by-party basis.) *The experience of dying and returning to life leaves a person drained of vitality even beyond the loss of a level. Upon resurrection, a character is aged a number of years equal to 1d20 minus their Constitution modifier (a negative Constitution modifier can increase the number of years aged). The true resurrection and true reincarnate spells negate this effect. These years are added to the base adult age in the case of the reincarnate spell. *A character is considered dead if he reaches negative his Constitution score or negative 10 hit points, whichever is further from zero. *Characters have a mental age and a physical age. If they are subjected to an artificial aging, youthening, or aging-prevention effect, it normally affects only their physical age. Physical age penalties apply (or are removed) when the character's physical age advances (or reverses) an age category; mental age bonuses apply (or are removed) when the character's mental age advances (or reverses) an age category. Death from old age only occurs when physical age reaches a maximum; one cannot die of old mental age. *Any spell or effect that transforms you or another person into a creature of your choice (such as polymorph) requires you to have seen the creature in person, or to make a Knowledge check (at twice the usual difficulty) to know enough about it to transform into it. *The Giant's diplomacy fix is in effect. * You may split actual movement around a non-moving move action. Example: move 15' to a door, open it, and then go through the doorway that same round using the rest of your movement. Complete List of Permitted Sources Explicitly Permitted Sources *The d20 System Reference Document *This High Seas Reference Document *''Arms and Equipment Guide'' *''Book of Exalted Deeds'' *''Book of Vile Darkness'' *''Central Casting: Heroes of Legend'' *''Cityscape'' *''Complete Adventurer'' *''Complete Arcane'' *''Complete Champion'' *''Complete Divine'' *''Complete Mage'' *''Complete Psionic'' *''Complete Scoundrel'' *''Complete Warrior'' *''Deities & Demigods'' *''Draconomicon'' *''Dragon Compendium'' *''Dragon Magic'' *''Drow of the Underdark'' *''Dungeon Master's Guide I'' *''Dungeon Master's Guide II'' *''Dungeonscape'' *''Eberron Campaign Setting'' *''Epic Level Handbook'' *''Expanded Psionics Handbook'' *''Fiend Folio'' *''Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss'' *''Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells'' *''Frostburn'' *The Giant's Articles (excluding the Polymorph rules) *''Heroes of Battle'' *''Heroes of Horror'' *''Libris Mortis'' *''Lords of Madness'' *''Magic Item Compendium'' *''Manual of the Planes'' *''Miniatures Handbook'' *''Monster Manual I'' *''Monster Manual II'' *''Monster Manual III'' *''Monster Manual IV'' *''Monster Manual V'' *''Oriental Adventures'' *''Planar Handbook'' *''Player's Handbook I'' *''Player's Handbook II'' *''Races of Destiny'' *''Races of Eberron'' *''Races of Faerun'' *''Races of Stone'' *''Races of the Dragon'' *''Races of the Wild'' *''Sandstorm'' *''Savage Species'' *''Spell Compendium'' *''Stormwrack'' *''Tome of Battle - Book of Nine Swords'' *''Tome of Horrors, Revised Edition'' *The Unkindness homebrew prestige class Sources Sometimes Permitted With DM Review *''Dragon Magazine'' *''Ghostwalk'' *''Magic of Incarnum'' *''Tome of Magic'' *''Unearthed Arcana'' (some elements used, some elements not used) *''Weapons of Legacy'' *3.5e content on http://www.wizards.com *most other 3.5e Wizards of the Coast-published sources *some third-party sources *some Pathfinder material Explicitly Banned Sources *http://www.dandwiki.com (use the hypertext d20 SRD instead to be sure of avoiding homebrew) *most other homebrew